In his one-person play In Search of Cruise Control, James Gangl balances the serious topic of childhood sexual abuse with comedic writing. And after visiting Victoria as part of the 2016 UNO Fest, the show is back for a second round, this time at the Victoria Fringe Festival.
Gangl’s inspiration for the play came from his experiences of having to give his teenage nephew a sex talk and experiencing childhood sexual abuse and trauma.
“I wrote a couple of stories, and one was about having a cruise contract aboard the Norwegian Dawn and making a bunch of terrible mistakes in relationships,” says Gangl. “And then my sister-in-law asked me to give my awkward teenage nephew a sex talk, and I thought, ‘What am I going to tell him?’… And then an added bit to that is I have a history of childhood sex abuse, so it kind of tied all together by being like, oh, it’s very important to have open conversations about sex and sexuality because if we don’t, we leave our youth at risk.”
While Gangl is a comedian, the play covers serious topics that don’t make room for many jokes. However, he tries to balance the serious tones with comedy to make it enjoyable and safe for the audience.
“I’m a comedy guy, so I never wanted to write a show about my trauma history,” he says. “I want to write a funny show… It’s important that solo shows are not the artist’s therapy. The work has to all be done already, so it’s safe for the audience to enjoy.”
In Search of Cruise Control is a collection of Gangl’s personal stories weaved together, one of the main reasons Gangl chose to make this a solo show.
“The way I work, the first show I wrote—Sex, Religion & Other Hang-ups—I wrote that alone, and I think it’s more because I’m kind of like a glutton of punishment for work. I don’t like to ask people to do things for me. That’s, like, one of my character flaws. But solo stuff worked for me because it’s literally as much time as I want to put into it… And then, you know, when I had a collection of these personal stories, I was able to weave them together into a show.”
The play’s title comes from the first story Gangl wrote about his time working on a cruise ship. And while most of the play tackles his childhood trauma and sex talks, it only came to fruition three weeks before its premiere.
“I first premiered the show at The Edmonton Fringe Festival in 2015,” he says, “and the only story I had was this one of me working on this cruise ship… The only part I knew existed when I had to put in a title, and a poster, was about being on a cruise ship, so it was called In Search of Cruise Control. In fact, it was only three weeks before that show that I introduced all my trauma history, which is nuts because that is the whole spine of the show.”
Gangl hopes that through In Search of Cruise Control he can offer an understanding space for people who have gone through trauma and abuse and break down the stigma surrounding the topic.
“The amount of folks with a history of trauma and sex abuse is huge, and I think for those folks, I want to show that they’re not alone,” he says. “You can move from isolation to belonging. And, for the rest of my audience, [it] is to just kind of take away the stigma from a hard topic.”
In Search of Cruise Control
Various times and dates, Saturday, August 27 to Sunday, September 4
Various prices, The Roxy
victoriafringe.com